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National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

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Your Environment. Your Health.

Publication Detail

Title: Self-reported residential pesticide use and survival after breast cancer.

Authors: Niehoff, Nicole M; Gammon, Marilie D; Parada Jr, Humberto; Stellman, Steven D; Neugut, Alfred I; Teitelbaum, Susan L

Published In Int J Hyg Environ Health, (2019 Sep)

Abstract: Previous investigations found elevated mortality after breast cancer in association with biomarkers of persistent organochlorine pesticides in non-occupationally exposed women. We hypothesized that lifetime residential pesticide use, which includes persistent and non-persistent pesticides, would also be associated with increased mortality after breast cancer.A population-based cohort of 1505 women with invasive or in situ breast cancer was interviewed in 1996-1997, shortly after diagnosis, about pre-diagnostic lifetime residential pesticide use. Participants were followed for mortality through 2014 (595 deaths from any cause and 236 from breast cancer, after 17.6 years of follow-up). Pesticides were examined as 15 individual categories; a group of seven used for lawn and garden purposes; a group of eight used for nuisance-pest purposes; and all combined. Cox regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for all-cause and breast cancer-specific mortality. Modification by estrogen receptor (ER) status, body mass index, and long-term residence was examined.Ever use (HR = 0.77, 95%CI = 0.63-0.95) and higher lifetime applications (4th quartile: HR = 0.62, 95%CI = 0.47-0.81, ptrend = 0.3) of the lawn and garden group of pesticides were inversely associated with all-cause mortality, compared to never use. The inverse association for lawn and garden pesticide use was limited to ER positive (vs. negative) tumors (pinteraction = 0.05). Nuisance-pest pesticides, and all groups combined, were not associated with all-cause or breast cancer-specific mortality.Contrary to our hypothesis, lifetime residential use of lawn and garden pesticides, but not all combined or nuisance-pest pesticides, was inversely associated with all-cause mortality after breast cancer.

PubMed ID: 31351853 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: Aged; Breast Neoplasms/mortality*; Environmental Exposure*; Female; Gardening*; Humans; Middle Aged; New York/epidemiology; Pesticides*; Self Report

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